SpoOOOooky Happenings at Ipswich Museum

By Eleanor Root, Collections and Learning Curator

When the amazing kids from Suffolk Family Carers arrived at Ipswich Museum for their Hallowe’en party the Museum was pitch black. We hadn’t forgotten that we’d invited nearly 30 young people and some of the braver adults from Suffolk Family Carers for a party, but we hadn’t told them that we’d be exploring the galleries in the darkness…

We kicked off the evening by going on a torchlight tour of the Museum and seeing if things really did come alive at night. We’d laid out a few extra creepy objects for our young visitors – Victorian dollies with cracked faces, strange taxidermied creatures and a medieval dried cat (my favourite object!).

Inspired by the objects and displays, we had a go at painting our faces. Lots of children transformed into skulls, dolls and all sorts of monsters before braving their next activity in the Egyptian gallery. Whilst here they had a go at wrapping each other as mummies and then acted out the journey into the afterlife and were given feathers against which their hearts would be weighed. After which we made fizzy potions that they could throw in their next bath.

The evening ended with carving pumpkins, which we filled up with bicarbonate of soda and food dye and lined up outside. As everyone counted down from 10, we poured vinegar into the pumpkins so they puked bright red and blue foam from their pumpkin-y carved mouths.

We had a brilliant evening with the kids and adults from Suffolk Family Carers and we hope they come back and visit us soon!